Running: Women's triathlon to be a slow go in NCAA

Saturday

Jan 25, 2014 at 8:34 PMJan 25, 2014 at 11:06 PM

John Conceison Running

Women triathletes can indeed smile after the NCAA delivered considerable recognition to their sport less than two weeks ago. Yet as USA Triathlon, our nation's governing body for the sport, played a major role in the passing of the NCAA legislation, it cautions that the sport isn't immediately going big time on the college scene.

The sport will develop like one runs the race — with speed but at a deliberate pace.

At the NCAA Convention in San Diego, women's triathlon was approved as an emerging sport, meaning that schools are permitted to offer scholarships to females while meeting the requirements of the Title IX gender equity law. Thus, this only applies to women's triathlon, not men's.

Schools will be able to offer scholarships and assemble varsity schedules for this August, but this is only one step toward women's triathlon becoming a full NCAA championship sport.

The sport will achieve full status if 40 schools add varsity programs within the next 10 years. Women's ice hockey, women's water polo and women's rowing have taken this route to championship status in recent years.

"We've got it, and now we have to see what this means," said Matt Valyo of Spencer, a USA Triathlon Level 2 coach who is USAT's Northeast Region athlete development coordinator and Northeast Junior Development Series director. "Everyone's excited about it. But it's a different game that we are going into."

Though 95 percent of the Division 1 schools voted for the measure Jan. 16, and 96 percent in Division 2 and 93 percent in Division 3 two days later, that doesn't mean these schools, or even most of them, are necessarily adding the sport.

Among the Division 1 schools expressing interest are Stanford, Arizona, Air Force, Denver, Drake, Monmouth, North Carolina-Asheville and Northern Iowa. Adams State (Colorado) and Colorado-Colorado Springs are Division 2 possibilities.

D3 hopefuls may include Maine-Farmington and Marymount University of Arlington, Va., which has a coach for its men's and women's club teams and competes with many college club programs in the Mid-Atlantic Collegiate Triathlon Conference. Programs will meet for a national club championship in April in Tempe, Ariz.

"It will be interesting to see how the NCAA is going to run it," said Valyo, who operates TAF Multisport (www.tri-and-fit.com). "We'll just be waiting for the teams. It could be one of those domino type of things — one school will be on board and the rest follow."

Women's triathlon runs as a fall sport, similar in many ways to cross-country — five to seven competitions on weekends.

The Olympic distance (1,500-meter swim, 40K bicycle ride, 10K run) or shorter is expected, and USA Triathlon in its proposal to the NCAA indicated competitions would be draft legal on the cycling leg. Not requiring a trailing cyclist to pass within 15-20 seconds may put more stress on the final running leg.

"It's very spectator friendly," Valyo said of the draft-legal event. "You get more of a sense of the race. It's an exciting, exciting format."

Still, Valyo cautions that the women's triathlon may be far from an overnight success in the NCAA.

"It does cost money — for the bicycles, the pool facilities, the mechanics for the bikes," he said. "You have to close roads for lengthy periods and supply the security."

And this isn't an immediate solution for paying tuition bills.

"We'll have to see how many athletes we have to make a college team," Valyo said. "It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. But now, we can't look at this as a scholarship cow. It's going to be years before we know the true scholarship potential."

According to Valyo, the women's triathlon legislation passed with the NCAA because of effective presentations by USA Triathlon. "I was pleased with how USAT pursued it," he said. "They came forth with straight-up, good and honest information."

Valyo advised those interested in following the development of the newest NCAA emerging sport to keep up with the "good, informative outlets" and become a member of USA Triathlon, which has been very effective with its communication.

"This road will be bumpy; they're not going to have it the easy way," Valyo said. "When things go wrong, we'll have to see how they do things better. It's a very exciting development, but we have to be patient."

For more information on this issue or getting started in triathlons, contact Valyo at matt@tri-and-fit.com.